Author: Imported Author 1890002

NATCHEZ, Miss. – Plans are being made for Natchez to rejoin the Mississippi Main Street Association as the city continues steps to enhance the downtown area by encouraging more commercial and cultural developments and the renovation of buildings.

Downtown Natchez Alliance leader Chesney Doyle presented plans to the mayor and city aldermen Tuesday that also include recruiting a downtown development director to oversee these efforts.

This has been in the works since 2018, when the Board of Aldermen adopted a master plan for revitalizing downtown Natchez. While implementation of that plan has moved slowly since then, Doyle said she now sees “great energy” coming forth to fulfill the ambitious development goals and make them “long-lasting and permanent.”

Rejoining the Mississippi Main Street Association – which Natchez has been out of for several years – would enable the city to get more assistance for the preservation and economic revitalization of its historic downtown. About 60 Mississippi communities are members of the MMSA.

The city has been providing $50,000 a year to the Downtown Natchez Alliance.

NATCHEZ, Miss. – Adams County supervisors turned down a proposal today to require people to wear masks in county-owned buildings as COVID continues to infect more people.

The county leaders said ordering people to wear face coverings in public places are an ineffective government attempt to curb the spread of the airborne virus.

“When you mandate someone to do something, they don’t do it anyway,” said county Board President Angela Hutchins.

“It’s a free country, and my choice is not to wear masks. Most of my constituents agree with me,” said Supervisor Kevin Wilson, the lone Republican elected to the five-member Board of Supervisors.

The board in May let a countywide mask mandate expire after being in place for 10 months.

At today’s board meeting, Supervisor Ricky Gray proposed reinstating the mask mandate just for county-owned buildings, but his motion was met with silence and failed as no other supervisor would agree to put it to an actual vote.

However, Hutchins urged people — even those vaccinated — to use their own discretion and choose to wear masks inside public places. “I’m going to ask you to please wear a mask when you’re inside,” she said.

As a more virulent strain of the coronavirus continues to infect more people in recent weeks, federal and state health officials last week began to urge everybody – even those with COVID vaccinations – to return to wearing masks inside public places where people gather. The mask-wearing directive had been eased in May, when the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said people fully vaccinated didn’t need to wear them in most public venues.

However, in areas of the country where most people are not getting vaccinated, COVID-19’s delta variant has surged — causing more people to be sickened and hospitals to be swamped with chronically ill patients.

Adams County in July experienced a jump in new COVID cases. The state Department of Health is reporting about 100 more residents tested positive this past week to be infected with the virus. That’s the largest weekly surge since May. New cases in the weeks of June had fallen to as low as 18 reported for the week ending June 26. That was the lowest weekly number since June 2020.

About 32 percent of Adams County residents have been fully vaccinated, according to the state Department of Health. That’s close to Mississippi’s 34 percent vaccination rate but below the 49 percent nationally.

The Board of Supervisors on Monday did reinstate Adams County’s emergency declaration it previously had in effect because of COVID. This gives county government more power to take certain measures it can’t during normal times.

NATCHEZ, Miss. – The mayor and city aldermen unveiled plans Thursday to demolish the Fry Building and put a downtown Natchez parking garage in its place.

 

The Board of Aldermen voted to accept property owner Walter Davis III’s donation of the building to the city, which will have it torn down and then construct a multilevel parking facility, said Mayor Dan Gibson.

 

“We have a parking shortage in downtown Natchez, and we need a parking garage,” Gibson said.

 

Once the city’s largest office building – located on the corner of Pearl and Franklin streets — the 1950s structure has deteriorated and been partly vacant for several years.

 

Gibson said a parking garage could help prompt the renovation and reopening of the adjacent Eola Hotel, which has been closed since 2014. Developers since then have planned and begun work to refurbish the 1927 landmark, but that’s been stalled the past couple of years.

 

The Fry Building donation – secret-code named Project Phoenix — has been the subject of discussions closed to the public by the mayor and the six city aldermen in recent meetings. At Thursday’s public session to officially accept the building, no details were discussed about how the city will pay for its demolition and the parking garage’s construction.

 

The building has an appraised value of about $1 million, said City Attorney Bryan Callaway.

 

Gibson said the new structure could include space for retailers below the multilevel public parking garage.

Whatever changes made to the Fry building site, he said, must be reviewed by the city’s preservation and planning commissions to ensure its new use is proper and design is architecturally and historically appropriate.

 

The Fry Building was constructed in 1956 and designed by prominent New Orleans architect Arthur Davis, according to Trulia.com, a subsidiary of the real-estate listing group Zillow. Davis was described as a “modernist architect who was instrumental in redefining New Orleans’ skyline” by The Times-Picayune newspaper when he died in 2011 at age 91. His architectural firm’s list of buildings include the Louisiana Superdome, the University of New Orleans Lakefront Arena and the city’s Royal Sonesta Hotel, according to Davis’ autobiography “It Happened by Design.”

 

The book noted he evacuated to Natchez and stayed in an unnamed historic house in 2008 when Hurricane Gustav was heading toward New Orleans.

 

NATCHEZ, Miss. –The Board of Aldermen on Tuesday reaffirmed its plans to get $2 million for improving Natchez parks and streets by borrowing the money through a bond issue.

 

Aldermen approved the resolution needed to publicly ask banks and investment firms wanting to finance the project to make their bids by July 30. This will ensure the money from the bond issue will be in the city treasury by the middle of August.

 

While the city will have to repay bond investors over several years the $2 million with added interest, Mayor Dan Gibson has said the city can handle the additional debt and won’t need to increase taxes for this. He’s estimated it’ll add about $120,000 a year to the city’s debt load.

 

The list of park projects includes spending $500,000 for restoring the deteriorating Duncan Park Golf Course clubhouse and $365,000 for the dilapidated North Natchez Youth Center. New tennis courts, playground equipment and splash pads are also among the recreational offerings in the works.

 

The board on Tuesday also approved the hiring of architects to design renovations of the Duncan Park golf clubhouse and the North Natchez Youth Center.

 

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Gibson and aldermen honored former mayor Butch Brown with an official proclamation and a key to the city for his 12 years leading Natchez. “He knew how to get things done,” Alderman Sarah Carter Smith said of Brown, 78, who’s been ill since suffering a stroke while serving as mayor 2012-2016. He previously served two terms 1992-2000.

 

“He left his mark on Natchez, and he’s left his mark on me,” said Gibson, who recited a list of Brown’s accomplishments and noted he’s sought his advice since he became mayor in July 2020.

 

While Brown aggressively asserted himself as the city’s chief administrator, his love for Natchez was obvious, said Alderman Dan Dillard. “Even if you disagreed with him, you had to love him,” he said.

 

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The board voted to give an extra $9,000 to help refurbish the Watkins Street Cemetery, the old private burial ground for black Natchez residents. It includes the countless number killed in the 1940 Rhythm Club fire interred in mass graves. The north Natchez cemetery has trees damaged from recent storms and is suffering water-drainage and erosion problems.

 

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Natchez Police Chief Joseph Daughtry noted how well the crowd behaved for Hank Williams Jr.’s July 4 concert, which the chief said drew more than 6,200 people to downtown Natchez. He said only two arrests were made – for public drunkenness – no car burglaries were reported and traffic flowed smoothly.

 

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The mayor broke a 3-3 tie vote to ask a judge to close down a convenience store by Cathedral School that he says is a drug-dealing magnet. Gibson said the store on Martin Luther King and Aldrich streets is a “public nuisance.” Local law-enforcement officers recently busted drug dealers there.

 

NATCHEZ, Miss. – Mayor Dan Gibson broke a 3-3 city board tie Tuesday to move forward on selling the old Natchez General Hospital to owners of an adjacent mansion. The vote came amid allegations this is to keep blacks out of a neighborhood of whites opposed to the vacant facility becoming apartments.

 

The Natchez Board of Aldermen deadlocked on beginning the process for selling the city-owned blighted property to Ginger and James Hyland, who own The Towers antebellum estate behind the old hospital.

 

In breaking the tie, Gibson voted to get appraisals on how much the Hylands should pay to purchase the old hospital from the city.

 

Gibson refuted Alderman Billie Joe Frazier’s charge that “pure racism” is blocking black developers from acquiring the city-owned Oak Street property. The mayor – who’s white — said he’s following the wishes of nearby residents against a multi-dwelling housing development being nestled with homes on Myrtle, Oak and Pearl streets.

 

“The neighborhood does not want it,” Gibson said of Magnolia Medical Foundation’s proposal to restore the 96-year-old, dilapidated former hospital into 30 apartment units for elderly residents.

 

“People who live in the neighborhood are best to determine what they want,” Gibson said. “We are simply being fair (but), the first thing (some people) want to say is that’s about race.”

 

Foundation head Erica Thompson, who’s black, presented plans in 2017 to spend $3.4 million for renovating the building, once the city’s main hospital until 1960.

 

 

A divided city board in 2017 voted for the foundation to get the building, but the deal was nullified in 2020 after Gibson became mayor. The Hylands and more than 50 other Natchez residents had sued the city to block the property deal, but the Mississippi Court of Appeals last year threw out their challenge. Then the mayor broke a 3-3 board tie in November to nullify the agreement with the foundation.

 

Gibson – elected a year ago July 14 as mayor – bristled at insinuations   made at Tuesday’s meeting that he’s against a housing development for blacks or is favoring whites. “I’ve never worked this hard in my life – for everyone,” Gibson said of his first year as mayor since taking office July 24, 2020.

 

The previous board had voted 4-2 for the foundation’s plans for the old General Hospital. However, Alderman Valencia Hall in last summer’s elections unseated Joyce Arceneaux-Mathis — who had supported the foundation’s proposal – and has since been the pivotal vote to create the tie for the mayor to break.

 

Other aldermen joining Hall – who represents a black-majority ward – to vote for selling the former hospital to the Hylands are Sarah Carter Smith and Dan Dillard, the board’s two white members.

 

Three black aldermen – Frazier, Felicia Irving and Ben Davis voted against selling to the Hylands. They said proposals should be sought from other bidders.

 

No public board discussions have been held about what the Hylands plan to do with old hospital building next to their two-century-old mansion and tourist attraction. “We have no idea of what the use of the property will be,” Irving said.

 

The city acquired the old hospital in 2013 after the previous owner defaulted on paying property taxes. Built in 1925, it was Natchez’ main hospital until what’s now Merit Health Natchez was built 1960. General Hospital has since has been apartments and a shelter for battered women.

 

NATCHEZ, Miss. –The Adams County Jail’s air conditioner is broken and county supervisors decided Tuesday to pay jailers more as they endure the heat for the next few weeks until the system is fixed.

 

The Board of Supervisors voted to pay county jailers an extra $150 a week after Adams County Sheriff Travis Patten noted how difficult it is to work during the AC outage. A special part has to be fabricated for the air-conditioning system to run, and it could be at least three to four weeks for this, said county board attorney Scott Slover.

 

“There are a couple of other challenges that our aging jail is facing,” Slover said.

 

The county board on Tuesday closed the public out of discussions about prospective lawsuits over jail conditions at the 46-year-old detention center.

 

Built in 1975, the jail is now substandard and has suffered various structural problems in recent years that include a leaky roof, mold, poor ventilation, crumbling exterior bricks and malfunctioning cell locks.

 

Adams County supervisors for several years have been considering the costs building a new jail, which a 2014 study estimated would cost about $7 million. Thebuilding – located on the corner of State and Wall streets by the Adams County Courthouse – has been the subject of lawsuits and court orders for improvements to be made.

 

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Adams County and Natchez officials have formed an agreement for using the $492,000 the federal government allocated in May to assess the extent of pollution at the old Natchez tire plant and other contaminated sites that local leaders hope can be reused.

 

The county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved the agreement that the city Board of Aldermen initiated last week. It outlines the process for using the federal EPA grant.

 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced in May that Natchez-Adams County is among 151 communities in the country to be awarded “Brownfields” grants.

 

While city and county officials have broadly discussed assessing sites in the downtown area extending from the Mississippi River bluffs to Martin Luther King Street, the main focus is on the old Armstrong tire plant in north Natchez.

 

The city-owned property on Kelly and South Concord streets has been the source of pollution with gasoline and cleaning solvents seeping into groundwater. The tire-making factory – which Armstrong began operating in 1939 — closed in 2001 after Titan acquired it. City leaders have for years tried unsuccessfully to lure another industry there, and Mayor Dan Gibson has continued pushing for this since taking office in July 2020.

 

The $492,000 EPA grant will pay for analyzing how serious pollution is at local sites and the costs of cleaning them to be redeveloped for new industrial use.

 

NATCHEZ, Miss. –The mayor and aldermen began taking stronger steps Monday against blighted properties in honor of Lee Nelson, the man who collapsed and died last week as he presented city officials his concerns about dilapidated houses and overgrown yards in his Daisy Street neighborhood.

 

In action Mayor Dan Gibson said was inspired by Nelson, the Board of Aldermen voted last night to sue the owners of 26 properties that have long been classified as public nuisances because of the poor conditions of their structures and yards.

 

At last Wednesday’s meeting of the mayor and aldermen, Nelson said he was “sick and tired of being sick and tired” – quoting 1960s civil-rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer – about the city’s lack of progress in cleaning up blighted properties and finishing street work in his neighborhood. Minutes later, the 70-year-old Nelsonsuddenly crumpled to the floor ashe presented photographs of deteriorated houses and unkempt yards. Natchez Fire Chief Robert Arrington immediately tried to revive him, but Nelson died.

 

“He was dedicated to what he wanted done. He was a community-minded person,” said Alderman Billie Joe Frazier, who grew up with Nelson.

 

Gibsonpraised Nelson’s “passion for Natchez” as the mayor and city board move forward in “doing all we can to address Mr. Nelson’s concerns” and “to make a better Natchez.”

 

Nelson was born in Natchez in 1950, graduated from Sadie V. Thompson High School in 1969, served in the U.S. Army, worked in Chicago and then returned to Natchez in 2008, according to the obituary Gibson read aloud in tribute to Nelson at Monday’s meeting of the mayor and aldermen. Survivors include his wife and daughter, who attended yesterday’s meeting.

 

In taking court action to address the 26 nuisance properties, aldermen voted to hire attorney Tim Cotton to file civil charges against the property owners, who have long ignored city directives to repair or clean up their structures and lots. Gibson said they’re the most derelict of about 250 such properties in Natchez.

 

Nelson last week also pointed to the $2 million initiative the mayor and aldermen are undertaking to upgrade municipal parks and streets. As a further tribute to him, Gibson and aldermen on Monday unveiled the architectural rendering of what a restored North Natchez Park Youth Center will look like.